PENG 306: DRILLING

ENGINEERING II LECTURE
NOTES

Lecturer: Justice Sarkodie-Kyeremeh

Office: Lab 3
Telephone: +233 (0)503671146
E-mail: justice.sarkodie-kyeremeh@uenr.edu.gh
 Grading:
Assignments, Quizzes & presentations: 20%
Midterm Exams: 20%
End of Sem Exams: 60%

Class code:
 COURSE OUTLINE
Overview of Drilling Operations
Rig Equipment: Selection and Design
Drill Bit and Hydraulics
Drilling Fluids Hydraulics
Casing Design
Oil-well Cementing
Directional Drilling
Well Control
Safety and Environmental Considerations
 Drilling
The overall objective of Structures containing
drilling is to bore a hole excellent reservoir rocks
into the formation until the and possess good sealing
targeted rock is layer supports
penetrated. hydrocarbon accumulation.
In hydrocarbon The only way to know for
exploration, it is the job of sure if hydrocarbons exist
the Geologists and in traps is to drill a well
Geophysicists to find through them.
geologic structures which
are potential hydrocarbon
traps and thereby
recommend drilling
locations. Many structures
contain no reservoir rock
and no hydrocarbon can
accumulate.
 OVERVIEW OF PETROLEUM OPERATIONS
Introduction
Before drilling an exploration
well, an oil company will
have to obtain an exploration
license.
Prior to applying for the
license, the exploration
geologists conduct scouting
exercise to acquire and
analyze seismic data,
analyze the regional geology
of the area and finally take
into account any available
information on nearby
producing fields or well tests
performed in the vicinity of
the prospect they are
considering.
The explorationists in the
company will also consider the
exploration and development
costs, the oil price and tax
regimes in order to establish
whether, if a discovery were
made, it would be worth
developing.
If the prospect is considered
worth exploring further, the
company then acquires an
exploration license to continue
exploring the field.
Exploration licenses may be
awarded at any time to allow a
company to drill exploration wells
in the area of interest but not
deeper than 350 meters (1148ft)
 If there is a discovery, the
company would have to
acquire a production license to
drill for development and
production from whatever
depth is necessary.
Production licenses are
awarded at discrete intervals
known as licensing Rounds.
The license may be acquired
by an oil company directly
from government during the
licensing rounds or at any
other time by farming-into
an existing license.
A farming-in involves a
company taking over all or
part of a license either:
by paying a sum of money to
the licensee.
by drilling the committed
wells on behalf of the
licensee at its own expense
or
by acquiring the company
who owns the license.
The objectives of
exploration drilling are:
To determine the presence
of hydrocarbons
To acquire geological data
(core, log) for evaluation
To flow test the well to
determine its production
potential and obtain
samples.
 The life of an oil and gas field
can sub-divided into the
following phases:
Exploration
Appraisal
Development
Maintenance
Abandonment
The length of the exploration
phase will depend on the
success or otherwise of the
exploration wells.
If an economically attractive
discovery is made on the
prospect then the company
enters the appraisal phase of
the life of the field to establish
the lateral and vertical extent
of the reservoir( to delineate)
The information provided by
the appraisal wells will be
combine with all previously
collected data to investigate
the most cost effective
manner to develop the field.
If the prospect is deemed to
be economically attractive, a
Field Development Plan will
be submitted to government
through its authorized body
for approval.
If approval for the
development is received
then the company will
commence drilling
development wells and the
construction of production
facilities according to the
development plan.
 Once the field is on-
stream the companys
commitment continues in
the form of maintenance of
both the wells and all of
the production facilities.
At some point in the life of
the field, the cost of
production will exceed the
revenue from the field and
the field will be
abandoned. All wells will
be plugged and the
surface facilities will have
to be removed in a safe
and environmentally
acceptable manner.
Drilling Personnel
Drilling a well requires many different
skills and involves many companies.
The oil company who manages the
drilling and/or production operations
is known as the operator.
In joint ventures, one company acts
as operator on behalf of the other
partners.
There are many different
management strategies for drilling a
well but in virtually all cases the oil
company will employ a drilling
contractor to actually drill the well.
During the course of drilling the well,
certain specialised skills or
equipment may be required
( logging, surveying).
These are provided by service
companies.
 These service companies
develop and maintain
specialist tools and staff and
hire them out to an operator
generally on a day-rate
basis.
The contracting strategies
for drilling wells range from
day-rate contracts to turnkey
contracts.
In the case of the day-rate
contract, the operator
prepares a detailed well
design and program of work
for the drilling operation and
the drilling contractor simply
provides the drilling rig and
personnel to drill the well.
The contractor is paid a fixed
sum of money daily during
the period of drilling.
Consumables (drillbits, cement),
transport and support services are
provided by the operator.
In the case of turnkey contracts,
the drilling contractor designs the
well, contracts the transport
,support services and purchases
all of the consumables.
The drilling contractor charges the
operator a fixed sum of money for
the whole operation.
The role of the operator in the
case of a turnkey contract is to
specify the drilling targets, the
evaluation procedures and to
establish the quality controls on
the final well.
In all cases, the drilling contractor
is responsible for maintaining the
rig and the associated equipment.
 The operator will generally
have a representative on the
rig (sometimes called the
company man) to ensure
drilling operations go ahead as
planned, make decisions
affecting progress of the well
and organize supplies of
equipment.
The Drilling Proposal
and Drilling Program
The proposal for drilling the
well is prepared by the
geologists and reservoir
engineers in the operating
company and provides the
information upon which the
well will be designed and the
drilling program will be
prepared.
The proposal contains the
following information:
Objective of the well
Depth (m/ft subsea) and
location ( longitude and
latitude) of target
Geological cross section
Pore pressure profile prediction
The drilling program is
prepared by the Drilling
Engineer and contains the
following:
Drilling rig to be used for the
well
Proposed location for the
drilling rig
Hole sizes and depths
Casing sizes and depths
Drilling fluid specification
Directional drilling information
Well control equipment and
procedures
Bits and hydraulics program
 Refer to the Herriot Watt Since the daily cost of hiring an
Drilling Notes for the offshore rig is very high, operating
description of the entire companies are very anxious to
drilling process. reduce the drilling time and thus
cut the cost of the well.
Drilling Economics It is quite common for the drilling
A well drilled from an offshore cost to make up 25-35% of the
rig is much more expensive total development cost for an
than a land well drilled to the offshore oilfield.
same depth. E.g.
The increased cost can be
attributed to several factors,
e.g. specially designed rigs,
subsea equipment, loss of
time to bad weather,
expensive transport costs
( helicopter, supply boats).
A typical North Sea well
drilled from a fixed platform Estimated
may cost around 10 million development cost
dollars.
Drilling Cost Estimates
Before a drilling program is
approved, it must contain an
estimate of the overall cost
involved.
However, when drilling in a
completely new area with no
previous drilling data
available, the well cost can
only be a rough
approximation.
Some cost are related to time
and are therefore called time-
related costs ( e.g. drilling
contract, transport,
accommodation).
Many of the consumable
items ( e.g. casing cement)
are related to depth and are
called depth-related costs.
 Some of the consumable
items such as the wellhead
will be a fixed cost.
Specialized services (e.g.
perforation) are charged on
the basis of a service
contract which will have
been agreed before the
service is provided.
The pricelist associated with
this contract will be a
function of both time and
depth and the payment for
services will be made when
the operation has been
completed.
More sophisticated methods
of estimating well costs are
available through specially
designed computer
programmes.
Whatever method is used to
produce a total cost, some
allowance must be made for
unforeseen problems.
When the estimate has
been worked out it is
submitted to the company
management for approval.
This is usually known as an
AFE (authority for
expenditure).
Funds are then made
available to finance the
drilling of the well within a
certain budget.
When a well exceeds its
allocated funds, a
supplementary AFE must be
raised to cover the extra
costs.
Well Planning
Introduction
Well planning is to formulate
a programme from many
variables to:
drill a well that is safe
drill at minimum cost
meet technical objectives
Safety of personnel as well
as the well should be the
highest priority in well
planning.
The well should be designed
to minimize the risk of
blowouts and other factors
that could create problems.
Drilling a hole to the target
depth is not completely
satisfactory if the final well
configuration is not useable.
The hole diameter should
be of an adequate size for
the well completion to be
run, in order to bring the
hydrocarbons to the
surface.
Also the producing
formation should not be
irreparably damaged.
Well planning is a
fundamental part of the
drilling operation and an
understanding of the
techniques involved is
considered to be good
background knowledge.
Data Collection
The drilling engineer is not usually responsible
for selecting the well sites but he must have an
understanding of the geology in order to work
with the geologist and reservoir engineers.
Common types of data used by drilling
engineers are as follows:
seismic studies
well surveys
geological contours
databases and service company bit record
files
mud records
mud logging records, daily drilling reports, log
headers